


No Less Beautiful

by zeldadestry



Category: Stage Beauty (2004)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Yuletide 2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-15
Updated: 2006-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-26 13:45:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every man loves Ophelia as though he is Laertes, wants to protect her, keep her safe, preserve her innocence. But every man is also Hamlet, unwilling to contemplate, to truly comprehend, how easily she breaks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Less Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> written for ekaterinn for yuletide 2006

Every man loves Ophelia as though he is Laertes, wants to protect her, keep her safe, preserve her innocence. But every man is also Hamlet, unwilling to contemplate, to truly comprehend, how easily she breaks.

He grows his hair long to play her. It would never do to wear a wig when she comes unhinged, the adornment would feel false. He must strip down, become as bare and vulnerable as she.

Maria combs his hair with her fingers, carefully, carefully, so she never tugs, never hurts his scalp or damages the strands, separates all tangles, smoothes each wave. “You have such beautiful hair,” she always murmurs, always works so slowly. Sometimes he appreciates the indulgence of her gentle touch. Today, when she is done, she rests her chin on his shoulder, brushes his hair away from his cheek so hers may press beside it. They still for a moment, twins in the womb of the dressing room, this chamber wherein every soul of the stage prepares to be born. They cling to each other, and he takes from her what he needs, her admiration, her love. Most of the time he’s not aware of what she offers, too caught up in his own affairs to even notice her, except as an extension, his other pair of hands, to help him do what needs doing. When he can see in her eyes what she feels, he teases her, makes a game of it, but for this moment, he lets her have him, as she imagines him to be. For, of course, she could never love him. Who could ever love him? Even his tutor saw not a young boy but the potential for who that pretty young boy could be, characters he could play, further on. It is always the character they love, it is never him. “Go on,” he says, patting her roughly on the arm which circles round his chest. “I’ve got to put my face on.”

Just before he is ready to go onstage, she pulls him aside. “I brought you a gift, flowers for her.”

“What? For who?”

Maria is blushing. “For Ophelia. I thought…”

“Yes?”

“I thought you might like to have real ones, instead of cloth.” She is hiding both her hands behind her body and when he gives a slight nod, she brandishes the blossoms in front of him, collected in a blue vase. He reaches his fingers out, runs them along the edge of a white petal.

“They are beautiful,” he says, and she accepts those words as his thanks.

That night on stage, distributing the blooms, knowing they will be trampled on, discarded, knowing they have already been cut, knowing that although they are beautiful still, they are dead, dead, tears at him, makes her fate feel as his own, too near and painful. He can not control himself, his voice wavers, his chest constricts and makes it difficult to breathe, to project. He wants to slap Maria when she rushes up to him after the final curtain call. “Oh, Mister Kynaston,” she gasps. Her cheeks are flushed and she clasps her hands together, presses too close to him, as though she would gather him in her arms if he would but give the slightest indication that her touch were welcome.

“Say anything at all about that travesty and I will never forgive you.”

“Travesty?”

“I was appalling tonight and you know it.”

“You were magnificent.”

“Oh, Maria, how can you have worked at my side all this time and yet still be unable to distinguish good acting from bad?”

Her brow furrows. “But Mister Kynaston, you are never bad.”

“Those damn flowers,” he hisses, as she helps him undress, runs her hands over the costumes to look for anything that needs mending, bends her face close to the fabric to spot any stain or tear.

Her face lifts up to him. “Was something wrong?”

“They distracted me. How dare you involve me in your ridiculous whims?”

Her eyes water and her lips tremble. She quickly hides her face from him, but he has already seen. All expression is heightened on the pale canvas of her face, a moment’s feeling, however fleeting, still displays itself as exhilarating joy or, like now, as crushing sorrow. “I am sorry, Mister Kynaston,” she says, softly.

“As you should be.” He knows she is sincere, and he is ashamed he makes such demands on her devotion. He rests his hand on top of her head, tucks stray hairs away behind her ears. He lifts her chin with his fingers so she can see him and know he is not angry. “Off you go, sweet Maria. The hem needs fixing.” She retreats to the corner, sets herself to the task he has commanded, and he is glad to have her near.

  
He is glorious on the stage. He is the world, bears all pain and joy of the world.

Acting, he tells himself at times, even when he is offstage. I am acting. I am not acting, he also sometimes says, but it is always a guess. How can he separate the two states?

George has gathered the remains of the flowers from the stage. He sweeps into the dressing room, drops them at Ned’s feet, and offers up a bottle of champagne. “The King’s just brought it in from France. Marvelous, even better than the last.”

“I can see you’ve already enjoyed your share.”

“Yes? Am I wide-eyed and blushing? Do I look ravished?”

“Ravished and ravishing both.”

“Delicious. Drink up, my friend. Join me in debauchery.”

“You far outpace me on that score. I could drink a hundred bottles of the stuff and still not descend to your depths.”

“Ha! Tell me, Ned, what’s the difference between an actor and a whore?”

“You don’t pay me.”

“Would you like to be paid?”

“Could you afford what I’m worth?”

“If the price were commensurate with the pleasure, I dare say none but Midas could afford you.”

“Much thanks.”

“Is economics the only difference?”

“An actor trains years for his profession, continually studies.”

“As though a whore doesn’t? Should you ever meet the witty, pretty, Nell, I suggest you keep quiet so as not to offend her. I could show you whores, Ned, whores who have seen more, done more, know more, than you or I could ever imagine. 'There are more things in heaven and earth,' well, you know how it goes. If only it were possible to fuck one’s way into heaven.”

“Yes?”

“I should be sure of arriving there one day.”

“But what guarantee do you have that there will be fucking in heaven?”

“Oh, but there must be. How else could it be counted paradise?”

“If fucking is what makes a paradise, then why should you ever wish to leave this earth?”

“Why should I ever wish to leave your side?”

“Why indeed?”

When they leave the dressing room, they leave themselves behind. It is a procession, walking slowly, side by side, to the ghostly stage, silent and blue in the moonlight. George becomes as solemn as he ever is, ever could be. Ophelia is his undisputed favorite. He loves to say her name, draw out each of the vowels, Ooohpheeeeliiiahhhh, unfurling note after note of longing, sorrow. “You’re perfect,” he has whispered, once, more than once, “lovely beyond all reason.”

“Stay here,” he says, leaving Ned in the center of the stage. “Don’t move.” He goes to sit in the first row of the audience, takes his time, just to stare. “I could have you every day.”

“Then have me every day.”

“Quiet. I don’t ask for you to speak, not now. Turn and face right, let me see you from that angle. Yes, your profile, your dark hair against your pale cheek. Now turn back towards me, but don’t look at me. Just let me look at you. If I had you every day, perhaps I wouldn’t want you anymore. Each time I come to the theater I warn myself that desire can not continually renew. Each time I wonder if I’ll watch you without wanting you. And yet the day has never yet arrived, the day when I am free of you. Die for me.”

“There is no death scene for her.”

“I mean the last scene.” George climbs back up onstage.

Ned hesitates. Something has gone wrong tonight. The boundaries between the performance and his person have been breached, continue to merge. He feels as though he has drowned himself, doesn’t belong here, among the living. How many more nights can he go on like this, resurrect himself and then sacrifice himself again for the sake of his love? “George,” he pleads.

“Say some lines, any lines.”

“She’s not like Hamlet. She doesn’t go on and on and on.”

“She sings.”

“Shall I sing?”

“Yes, sing.”

“I,” his voice falters. “I can not.”

“Speak, then, any of her lines. Let me see her.” Ned gathers himself together, so he can give himself away. He never refuses George, he wants this as much, though sometimes it stings him that it must always be by command. It is another performance, with George as his director. He can not be too resentful, though, not with George looking upon him now as he would look upon Ophelia, already immersed in the dream. From his pockets he draws the remnants of the flowers he collected, passes them gently into Ned’s hands.

The blooms are faded, ruined. The white petals are scarred with brown creases, visible decay. He touches them to George’s cheek where some adhere to the stubble and stay. The remainder fall away. “'There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember.'” George kisses him before he can go any further. Ned surrenders himself to this Hamlet, as though he were Ophelia before the play began, when happiness was still possible for her, for him.

“Is this good, my heart?” George whispers between kisses. “Is this better, my sweet? Tell me you are not so sad that madness will become your only sanctuary.”

“No, not so sad, my lord. You shall be my solace, keep me wedded to my reason.”

“For I will look after you, love you, give a different ending to your story than death in the water.” He speaks with such tender conviction, what audience could withstand him? Ned can not. He drowns in the illusion.

Ned never finishes a role. He never gets any of them, any of them, quite as he knows they should be. There’s always something lacking in the performance, so that as the run comes to a close he wonders if just one, just one more night would let him unfold the full weight of the woman, of her triumph and tragedy. George, however, tires of the characters within a few weeks, begins to hound Betterton, asking when the run will finish and what will be next. At those times their own private play vanishes. He and George wrestle and fight and argue as much as they fuck, because the Duke has tired of the lady, whoever she may be, and must amuse himself with the man behind her figure.

  
These are good times of the night, the crowd gone, every other actor headed home, and he is alone. Maria is there to attend him, put all his accoutrements right for the next day’s matinee.

“I love Ophelia’s clothes.” She speaks quietly, almost to herself. He knows she can’t tell if he’s listening.

“You love all the clothes,” he says, and she turns to him. He can see her in the mirror as he’s removing the last of his eye makeup.

“I love Ophelia’s most of all, white and blue, the colors of purity and truth. I feel so sorry for her.”

“Because she dies?”

“No. Because she loves. How much she wanted to please the prince, how desperate her shame at his rejection, never knowing that to play the madman he must refuse her, deny her. There was nothing she could do. She could be the perfect woman, offering perfect love, and still he would mock her, forsaking all that had been most dear in his prior incarnation.” Her voice swells with passion, hurtling towards crescendo. “Who was the true Hamlet? Was he a man pretending to be sane or a man pretending to be mad?”

“A question for the audience, perhaps, but not for the actor. A man can not say if he himself is sane or mad, not for sure. The actor hates, he loves, as the script dictates. The actor knows what the character feels, but no more than that. What I must know, what I must be able to express, is how it feels. Say that he’s sane, say that he’s mad, there’s really no difference. He is who he is and no word, no name, can ever change that. We are who we are. Why do you stare so?”

She starts, drops her eyes down to her lap. “Forgive me, Mister Kynaston.”

“I don’t ask for apology. I simply wish to know why.”

Now she lifts her head and glares at him. He glares back, never ceding the upper hand. “You know why. I doubt my gaze is different than anyone else’s.”

“Do I know?” He slips into his stage voice, his woman’s voice, it happens sometimes, out of habit. Acting. Not acting. What’s the difference? His body can not tell, his heart can not tell. “Tell me, dear friend, tell me why I should be such a fascination to you. Does the freak still thrill you?”

“The freak? I can not understand what you mean to say.”

“Not quite a man, not quite a woman, yes? People love a freak, it’s true.”

“You can not seriously believe that is why people stare at you. You are acknowledged to be the most beautiful woman on the English stage.”

He goes back to his man’s voice, by choice, but which is the real voice? “Been talking to Pepys, have you?”

“He merely records what the people believe.”

“You believe it?”

“You are beautiful, Mister Kynaston, beautiful and vain. Why else do you cajole me to flatter you?"

He is glad they are talking through the mirror, not face to face. It lets him feel protected. He wants her to be honest with him. He wants to know. “When?”

“When?”

“When am I beautiful? On stage, you mean? Or now?”

“In any guise.”

Yes, in any costume. So it is. “You’re a liar. Think you’re paid to fancy me, do you?”

“Believe what you will.”

“As beautiful now, here, in my breeches, as I am then, is that what you mean to say?”

“More beautiful!”

“Swear to it.” He turns from the mirror, reaches his hands out to her. She bends down on her knees, without hesitation, presses her face against his fingers.

“I swear to you, Mister Kynaston. I swear.”

“Thank you, Maria. Thank you.”

  
Why does one act? Mustn’t there be as many reasons as actors, a different compulsion for each one?

Why does he act?

For beauty, of course. To live for beauty, on beauty, despite the offstage world's determination to crush it.

The crowds can make him feel as a god when they laugh, weep, chant his name ecstatically.

Kyn-a-ston! Kyn-a-ston! Kyn-a-ston!

They cheer for him now, for his men, just as they did then for his women. He can still win their adoration.

  
It is early in the afternoon when he comes home from the theater, and George is waiting on the doorstep. He looks so wonderfully out of place on their modest street, their modest stoop, wearing a purple coat with gold brocade, his boots and his walking stick shining. He lounges, he always lounges, no matter where he goes, and when Ned approaches he smiles idly, doesn’t bother to stand. “These are your quarters?”

“Yes.”

“And that woman of yours?” Before this, George barely acknowledged Maria’s existence. Now that he does, he must make it clear he disdains her.

“This is also her home.” He moves towards the door, takes out his key.

George stands close behind him, leans in over his shoulder. “Let me in,” he murmurs, his hand slipping under Ned’s curls to curve round the back of his neck.

Ned has always loved George’s slow, haughty voice, and the decadent slink of his body. He never asks or pleads or laments, he is confident in his power to take, have, and, most of all, enjoy. “Alright.”

George enters the apartment and sizes it up in one look. “I could pay for your lodgings, Ned. There’s no reason for you to live in such a place.” He looks carefully at Ned’s white shirt. “You’ve several stains,” he points out. “Of course you manage to be pretty, even trimmed in dross.”

“I’ve been working. I don’t care how I look when I’m working.”

George has found the mirror, runs a hand over his hair, brushes dust no else could see from his shoulder. “Rehearsing, you mean? You don’t need it. Your Macbeth is marvelous, Ned. I had no idea you could make such a man out of yourself, such a cold-hearted bastard. All this time, have you been hiding this brutal element of your nature? I never would have suspected.”

“He’s not cold-hearted, not at the beginning.”

“Not as cold-hearted, no. But ambition tempers all tenderness, and a man sacrifices much when he chooses to indulge the ruthless side of his nature.”

“You’re speaking from experience?”

George gives a nasty smile. “When even the king can be executed, all must fight for their place. But why should we depress ourselves with talk of such horrors? What’s the next play?”

“Tired of Macbeth already?”

“A comedy, I should hope. No more of this wearisome tragedy.”

“No escape for you. We turn to Hamlet.”

“Interesting. And you will play the prince?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting. I’ve always liked him.”

George shares the conceit of many aristocrats. Every time someone defers to them, they imagine it is because they are in the right, rather than because people are afraid of their power, and their selfishness prospers. George may admire Ned and wonder at him, but has never considered him an equal. “Have you? Perhaps his ease in discarding those who had loved him, opened to him, impresses you. Perhaps you like how easily he can treat a lover as a toy.”

“Is that an accusation?”

“It is, and I have more. You're a liar. You fucked me as a man, and we both know it. There were two men in that bed, fucking.” George is trying to cut him off, but each time he opens his mouth, Ned shoves him with all his strength. “Shut up. You’re going to listen for once. I don’t care if we were on stage, I don’t care if you sometimes made me wear a wig. You knew I was a man and that’s what you wanted. You can lie, like you did before, but I know it.” He has pushed George all the way back up against the wall and so close, with nowhere to go, it is inevitable that George should be kissing him again, employing all his usual force, his unspoken chant of I own you, I own you, I own you. Ned takes in his taste, savors it, then holds it up against the weight of abandonment, the bruises of the beating, the soreness still fresh in his body’s memory, and pulls away. George tries to drag him closer, but Ned stands his ground, wrenches himself apart. “I don’t want this.”

“We can be happy again, Ned. I don’t care about Jane, you know that, don’t you? The marriage was purely political, a matter of maintaining my social standing, bearing an heir, all that tedious nonsense.”

“I understand.” He may have expected an apology, insincere, of course, but offered as an attempt to manipulate him. But why would George ever apologize for anything? He has probably never considered any of his actions worth apology. “Imagine for just a moment that our positions had been reversed. Would anything have persuaded me to turn against you?”

“Sanctimony nauseates, Ned, and yours is no exception.”

“Have you ever been hurt, George?”

“Hurt? How do you think I’ve felt, all these months you’ve refused to see me?”

“How did I look, the last time we spoke?”

“You mean at the baths?”

“Of course.”

“How did you look?”

“Do you remember how I walked? I was limping. Do you remember the bruise below my eye? It was the only one visible, but I could have shown you scores more. You could have had me like that. You could have kissed each sore, each healing wound. I was a real Ophelia, open to you, no acting. How could you turn away when I most needed you? I can’t believe you ever cared for me at all.”

“Ned, please. You know that’s not true. I care for you. I cared for you.”

“Do you? Did you?” Has George’s voice ever been like this before, just for Ned, Ned as himself? Is this the first time Ned has heard him plead when they have not been acting? Maria. Maria on stage, Maria in his arms offstage, she is a mystery, yes, as each individual is to any other, but he knows her. He knows her, down to the bones. He loves her onstage, loves her offstage, knows she feels the same. George, could, could he, is that what he means to say, that he could love Ned, just as he is? But he knows George and he must not believe this. This is the acting, right here, right now, George pretending to care. To be with George means to always act. He can act. He loves to act. But when he is not acting, George turns from him. He must be free to choose, free to dispense with the characters and be his own trembling self. His tutor had taught him to seek for a beauty that could only exist onstage. But there is no beauty displayed solely onstage. If it is onstage, then it is also offstage, it exists. They are two realms, connected, and he is the same man, in different states, it is true, but he is one man. He knows now that there exists no nobility without flaw, purity without stain. There are no seamless wholes. He can accept all the ragged joints, the places where performances, people, will not fit together smooth. “I am flawed, George, and incomplete. I break. I am broken. I will break again.” No less beautiful, Maria would say, if she were here. No less beautiful. She would kiss him. Her eyes. She would make him believe.

“Come back to me, Ned.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I have just told you why not.”

“You could have hardly expected me to risk my reputation.”

“I would have done more for you, so much more, if I could have, if you had needed it.”

“Don’t tell me what you would have done in my place. You’re not in my place. You’re no one, Kynaston. Actors and whores, remember? One and the same. You think I can’t crook my little finger and find someone to replace you? Younger, fresher, your superior in every way?” Ned says nothing, and George, upon recognizing the ineffectiveness of his barbs, pulls himself up short, stops his rant in the middle and presses his lips together, shakes his head as though to deny it all, clear the slate, start again. He looks so exactly like Betterton when a scene’s gone wrong and he can’t figure out what advice to give the actors to uncover the heart of the moment. What the hell are you doing, Betterton says. That’s not what this is about, you’re not listening to each other! How will you know what you feel, how to act, if you’re not even paying attention! “I didn’t come here for insults.”

“I know.” He wants to tell the truth, wants to say he doesn’t love George anymore. But George won’t understand that, George won’t accept it as a final dismissal. “I never want to see you again. I don’t want you anymore, you fool, don’t you understand?” he says, with as much force as Lear raging at the storm. It’s good acting, yes, it has to be, because it’s a lie. He wants George as much as he can remember, more, because he’s been months without him.

George, who has most likely never been cut loose before, gapes at him. He sputters, but can not seem to find any words. He turns away, shoulders hunched, his hair hiding his face. Ned gives him the moment, is startled he needs it. When he turns back towards Ned, the movement is so slight, just a fraction. “Will you, just once more?”

“Who?”

“Anyone you want.”

“'Nymph,'” he whispers, moving up behind him, pressing against his body one last time, though never has it been like this, George in front of him, his chest against George’s back, and he knows from George’s rigid body and stuttering breaths that he, too, understands the reversal. “'In thy orisons, be all my sins remembered.'” George clutches for Ned’s hand, but it eludes capture, slides away from his body. “You must go.”

George’s head is bowed as he turns to face Ned, to press his palm flat against Ned’s chest. “'I have shot mine arrow o’er the house, and hurt my brother.'” For a moment, all Ned’s convictions falter. That George knows these words, that he has found this moment, this one moment to say them, in supplication, fills Ned with astonishment. He is being asked for forgiveness, and that makes him want to renew the bond he has just pronounced severed. They will be, they will not be, he can not choose. He does not need to choose, George can not see into his heart, know the turmoil that has suddenly surged there. His hand falls away. He leaves without looking up, without meeting Ned’s eyes again. It is ended, and neither of them need perish. There are no poisoned swords, there is no Laertes, no Hamlet, even though Ned and George have borrowed their words.

  
“The Duke,” Ned begins, as soon as Maria returns home, before she has even shut the door behind her. He does not know how to go on. It is late in the afternoon and the light is dying outside their window.

“I know,” she says. “I saw him.”

“I told him to go, told him I don’t want him. I don’t love him.”

“It tortures me that one day you may change your mind.”

“'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…'”

“Please don’t.”

“You don’t want Macbeth to share your bed?”

“No.”

“You say you only want me.”

“Yes.”

“And I am not each character I play?”

“Are you? Am I? Is Cordelia as Miranda? No, and yet I can play both. The characters are a part of me, yes, but they can not equal the whole of me.” As she speaks, she disrobes. Layer after layer of cloth falls away from her body, until she stands naked before him. “I want to be everything, everyone, to the crowd, to you, my love. I want to be all men, all women, in one. All life in my body, for you, that is what I want. Perhaps that is why I act.”

“You don’t have to be anyone else. I love you as I know you love me.”

“And how do I love you?”

“I know you love him, whoever he is, this me, me, not a character, and yet all characters and more. Me.”

Her smile returns, transfiguring her as always. “Yes. You.” As always, yes, yet he acknowledges her face, her body, her words, her all, all, all of her, as a singular grace bestowed.

“Come with me, sweet maiden,” he says, taking her by the hand and leading her to their bed. “Lie down beside me and let me comb your hair.”  



End file.
